


Lyannason

by ForeverDaydreamer



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Daenerys Doesn't Care About the Iron Throne, Daenerys Targaryen Is Not a Mad Queen, Daenerys and Jon grow up together, Daenerys the Abolitionist, I was wondering who to pair Daenerys with since she and Jon aren't a thing, Jon doesn't want the Iron Throne either, OT3, R Plus L Equals J, Sansa leaves the Red Keep Annie-style, and it hit me, escape from the Red Keep, no Jonerys in this one, she has other goals
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:33:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27051235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForeverDaydreamer/pseuds/ForeverDaydreamer
Summary: Ned makes it to the Tower of Joy just a few hours later, and finds an empty tower and his sister’s body. Instead of growing up Robb’s companion and Arya’s co-conspirator, Jon grows up as Dany’s protector.
Relationships: Grey Worm/Missandei/Daenerys Targaryen, Jon Snow & Daenerys Targaryen, Jon Snow/OFC, Khal Drogo/Daenerys Targaryen
Comments: 8
Kudos: 61





	1. A Wedding (And A Funeral)

**Author's Note:**

> The confrontation at the Tower of Joy never happens, as Ned gets there after Lyanna died and the Kingsguard has fled with baby Jon. Instead of only having Sir Willem as their protector, Daenerys and Viserys have half a kingsguard, and as such don’t end up starving on the streets when Willem dies. Jon grows up, extremely conscious of how his father slighted his wife and other children (so he still has intense shame even if it’s of a different sort), not really caring about the Iron Throne, shielding Daenerys from Viserys’ rages, and training hard with Arthur Dayne. The Kingsguard is split over whether Rhaegar’s annulment was legal, and thus whether Jon is legitimate and who is the rightful king, which puts a damper in their planning. As always, plot gets kicked into motion when Jon Arryn dies. But that’s in Westeros….

In King’s Landing, Jon Arryn laid in state at the Red Keep. News of his death would soon spread throughout Westeros and across the Narrow Sea. But for now, the city of Pentos was oblivious. A small group of Westerosi expatriates had just shelved a years-long debate to discuss a more urgent matter.

“He wants to do _what?_ ” Ser Oswell Whent actually did a spit-take, spewing wine across the table.

“His Grace has decided to marry the Princess Daenerys to the...horselord Khal Drogo,” long-suffering Gerold Hightower repeated tonelessly.

“He’s mad,” Ser Oswell muttered under his breath. “To do this to his own sister! He is Aerys all over again.”

“Did you advise His Grace against this?” Ser Arthur Dayne asked.

“Of course I did,” Hightower snapped. “I tried to tell him that the Magister is unknowledgeable when it comes to Westeros, or perhaps misleading him outright. His Grace did not appreciate me doubting his wisdom.”

“Maybe I could try to talk to him,” a slim, dark-haired young man said. “After all, we are family.”

“No, Jon, don’t,” Ser Arthur said, laying one hand on Jon’s arm. “He likes Gerold better than you, most days.”

“The idea that the Dothraki could win someone the Iron Throne is absurd,” Whent said. “Even _if_ they didn’t refuse to cross the sea, the people would never welcome anyone who came on the back of a Dothraki horde. Every one of Viserys’ ideas for retaking the Throne has been more irrational than the last. And you call him your king, when there is a sensible young man of Rhaegar’s seed before you?” Everyone else in the room sighed as the years-long debate was unshelved and brought out once more.

“Ser Oswell,” Jon said, gently, “I am flattered by your faith in me, but I am a bastard. And even if I were not, Aerys’ last decree struck Rhaegar’s children from the line of succession. I cannot be king.”

It was the matter that had plagued the small group for Jon’s whole life. His father Rhaegar had lured his mother, Lyanna Stark, to lie with him and produce Jon by showing her a document of annulment of his first marriage that he had known was not legally binding. He had always meant to legitimize Jon by decree when he took the Throne, the three Kingsguard all agreed. Unfortunately he had died before he could, and his father had struck his line from the succession for good measure. For Ser Arthur and Ser Gerold, it was clear that Jon was illegitimate and thus could not be king. Ser Oswell thought that, in the light of Viserys’ instability, they should act as if the annulment were real. For years he had championed Jon’s cause, long after Jon himself had accepted his bastardy. This had stymied the three Kingsguards’ attempts to plot a return to Westeros. This impasse was only deepened when just the discovery of Jon’s existence had caused the Martells to withdraw from a fledgling alliance. They had made little progress in gathering allies since then.

“Ser Gerold,” Jon said, “are you sure my uncle cannot be convinced?” The old knight nodded, pity in his eyes. “Then I shall go tell Daenerys.”

Jon stood and left the room, his mind whirling. If Viserys could not be convinced, then he and Daenerys would have to do what he’d long suspected they would have to and flee. Could he convince any of the Kingsguard to go with them? Ser Gerold he immediately gave up as a lost cause. To Hightower Viserys was king, and that meant his word was law. Whent would follow him, of that Jon was sure, but he might name as his price Jon agreeing to try and claim the Throne, which he did not want to do. Jon wasn’t sure if he would want the Throne if he had been trueborn. But as a bastard? He felt deep shame at the thought, and was sure Westeros would jeer at him if he even tried. How could he try to claim the birthright of his half-brother and half-sister, when his existence was perhaps the reason they were dead? If Rhaegar hadn’t left the three Kingsguard with his mother, there would have been guards for Princess Elia and her children. Ser Gerold had been in the Red Keep longer than Rhaegar had been alive--surely he would have known a way to get them out.

Not to mention that Whent thought his way to the throne was by marrying one of his Stark cousins, whose maternal grandmother was a Whent. Ser Oswell wanted his blood on the Iron Throne, and Jon was a means to this end; he couldn’t trust him, and he could never sway Hightower--that just left Arthur. It might be possible. Arthur was the closest thing Jon had to a father. Arthur even claimed him as his sister’s bastard to hide his true identity from spies and assassins, since he didn’t have the Targaryen look. He knew Arthur saw him as something like a son, and that he grew weary after all these years of obeying the edicts of a mad king of nothing. Arthur he might be able to convince, and the three of them could flee to Braavos, find work, and live simple, peaceful lives.

But first, to speak to Daenerys. Instead of knocking on her bedroom door, Jon went out into the gardens and climbed up to her window. Viserys did not trust Jon to be with his sister alone, no matter how many times Jon swore he had no interest in carrying on the family tradition of incest, that he saw Daenerys as his sister in the manner that Starks thought of their sisters. If they wanted to speak privately, of matters that required discretion--for Jon did not doubt that the maid chaperones who supervised them reported to someone--they had to do it in secret.

He knocked on the window; Daenerys let him in. Jon wasted no time getting straight to the point. “Viserys means to marry you off,” he said. “Dany, this is the time.”

“Who does he mean to marry me off to?” Daenerys asked, a glint of shrewdness in her eyes.

“A horselord,” Jon answered. “Some Dothraki khal. I know nothing of how they treat their women, but I do know that they slaughter, enslave, and rape outsiders.”

“If I married one I wouldn’t be an outsider,” Daenerys retorted, her expression thoughtful.

“Be serious, Dany,” Jon pleaded. “Anyways, the Kingsguard agree that there’s no way an alliance with the Dothraki would help anyone take the Iron Throne, if you care about that sort of thing.” Jon had very mixed feelings about the idea of a Targaryen restoration. The Targaryens had deserved to be overthrown, he thought, after what Aerys and Rhaegar had done to the Starks, Baratheons, and Martells. Certainly Viserys was not deserving. If Robert Baratheon had not rewarded the murderer of his brother and sister, and had not sent assassins after Viserys and Daenerys, Jon would consider his throne rightfully won and wish him the best. As it was, he didn’t support Baratheon, didn’t support Viserys, didn’t support himself. He would support Daenerys, but she had no claim so long as Viserys was alive, and Jon wanted something better for her than being shackled to that awful chair anyway. He thought they should abandon Viserys, change their names, dye Dany’s hair, and go back to Braavos. Dany wanted that too, deep down, but she felt an obligation to her brother and their loyal Kingsguard. She couldn’t abandon them, and so regaining the Iron Throne was ostensibly her one goal in life too.

“Maybe that’s a good thing,” Daenerys suggested. “Jon, you’re always saying we shouldn’t go back to Westeros. I agree that Viserys wouldn’t be able to take back the Throne. What if this is the way to stay in Essos without abandoning him? And if I’m married to someone else, I wouldn’t have to marry him. Maybe this is our way out. Maybe we could achieve our dreams here without going back to Westeros.”

“Daenerys, I know you want to help the common people of Essos, but the Dothraki aren’t anything at all like the Westerosi, or even most Essosi,” Jon replied. “Being married to a khal wouldn’t be anything like being a queen. They don’t believe in charity. If you wanted a life of luxury and giving money to the poor you would be better served looking for a husband in Volantis.”

“The Volantenes turned us away,” Daenerys reminded him.

“They refused to help us invade an entire continent when we had no other allies,” Jon said flatly. “They would not refuse a princess with the blood of Old Valyria as a bride. You would be a status symbol. They would have to treat you well. And maybe if Baratheon’s son is as bad as ruling as he is one of your sons could get the support of the Iron Bank to take back the Throne.”

“Wouldn’t I be a status symbol to this khal too?” Daenerys wondered. “Why else would he want to marry me? How often do Dothraki khals marry outside their own people? Why would he do that if he didn’t have a reason?”

“So you want to go along with this madness and just _hope_ this khal turns out to be gentle?” Jon said disbelievingly.

“No,” Daenerys said. “I’ll ask around, learn more of the man and his motives. If he has a reputation for cruelty we’ll go with your plan.”

* * *

Two weeks later they were meeting with Khal Drogo face-to-face. Daenerys had asked the Kingsguard, the Magister, and, most importantly, the Magister’s “servants” about the khal. She had learned that she was right in thinking that Khal Drogo was ambitious. He wanted to be the leader of all the Dothraki, of all the Great Grass Sea, and then extend out of the grasslands and create a Dothraki Empire. Her Valyrian blood and title of princess would give him status with those outside of his own people. As such, Daenerys felt reasonably sure she would not be subjected to anything more than the usual indignities of marriage. Probably. Well, maybe she was a little more uncertain than she let on, but she thought there were advantages to the marriage, assuming that Drogo would be able to actually deliver on his imperial dreams. First, she thought that what Viserys really wanted was to be wealthy, not to be king. He was afraid of being a pauper, of being powerless, and he liked being able to give people orders--that was why he hungered for the Iron Throne. He didn’t care for the actual business of governance, and he wouldn’t be good at it. He didn’t like work of any kind--he had excused himself from most of the lessons and training she and Jon went through (they had managed to convince Ser Arthur that, on account of the assassins, she should be taught to defend herself). Being rich would fulfill all his desires, and she thought he would realize that eventually, or at least stop actively pursuing anything else.

Daenerys thought she might be fulfilled by marrying Drogo as well. Daenerys wanted to help people. She loved stories of the charities her mother and Rhaegar had run, of the ways Aegon the Unlikely had helped the smallfolk, of Good Queen Alysanne ending the rite of first night. In the past few years she had become aware of how dire her straits would have been without the Kingsguard. If they had all fallen on the Trident, she wouldn’t have Jon, and she and Viserys would have been left friendless, alone, and destitute after Ser Willem had died. They might have starved in the street, or been sold into slavery.

Slavery was evil. Ser Arthur had taught Jon and Daenerys the Westerosi abhorrence for slavery, but she felt more than a disapproval for the concept. She knew slavery, she had seen it in practice, and she _hated_ it. She would always remember the horror of it. She would always remember Vaella. Vaella had been her best friend when they had lived in Lys, for the better part of three years. She had been a slave in a household near theirs. Shortly before they left Lys, Vaella’s master had incurred some debts while playing cards, and to pay them he had sold Vaella to a brothel. Vaella wasn’t the only person Daenerys had known to be sold away, but Vaella was the one who starred in her nightmares. She had been so scared. She had been physically carried away screaming and crying.

Daenerys wasn’t the only one who hated slavery. The Westerosi, according to the Kingsguard, all hated slavery. But Daenerys wanted to do something about it. She didn’t understand how the Westerosi could go around saying they hated slavery and yet allow it to exist in the world. They didn’t even refuse to trade with slaveowners! For the whole year they had lived in the Magister’s house, Daenerys had been teaching his “servants” the language of Westeros and smuggling them money where she could so that they could flee to freedom in King’s Landing and elsewhere. If she was placed at the head of a burgeoning empire she could do so much more.

So she had refused to run away with Jon. Instead she had carefully picked out a dress, arranged her hair, and found a book on the Dothraki language. She met Khal Drogo’s gaze and greeted him with words that hopefully were not too mispronounced. Afterwards Viserys patted her hair and told her she’d done well. She smiled at him, but her eyes were tracking Jon as he slipped out of the Magister’s house to follow Drogo. Jon had wanted to take his own measure of the man. He would approach the Dothraki camp and ask to speak with him.

* * *

Jon was reasonably certain no harm would come to him in the messenger’s garb Dany’s “servant” friend Minna had gotten him, but even so approaching the Dothraki camp was nerve-wracking. The camp was loud and raucous and could be heard well within the city walls. Smoke and the smell of cooking meat wafted through the air. Jon was stopped at the edge of the camp by a boy, and tried unsuccessfully to speak with three different men before he found one that spoke Low Valyrian. After some back-and-forth the man agreed to take him to the khal, and translate Drogo’s speech for him.

Khal Drogo was tall and incredibly muscular, with a long braid jangling with many bells, but he was younger than Jon had expected, closer to ten years older than Dany than twenty. Of course, ten years was still a very large age gap at her young age.

Drogo was grooming his horse. He looked up and addressed Jon’s guide. “ _Khono. Another messenger from the pasty fat man? What does he want now? Why has he sent this child?”_ Khono translated this as, “He wishes to know what the Magister’s message is.”

Jon said, “I have no message from the Magister, but rather from...your bride.” He said this reluctantly; he thought Dany was too young to marry. “She sent me to tell you of her admiration for your ambition, and her hope that she will be an aid to you, and give you good counsel on the ways and hearts of the Essosi people.”

Khono says, “ _He says he was sent here by the girl. Your khaleesi. She admires you and wishes to aid you, as well she should, great khal._ ”

Drogo said, “ _I am pleased,_ ” and Khono obligingly translated this.

Jon continued. “I am Daenerys’ nephew. For as long as I can remember, there has been a price on our heads, powerful men who want her dead, and I have done my best to protect her. For all that I am still green, I have studied swordplay since the time that I could walk, so that I could defend her from all harm. You have won many battles, and many men follow you; I do not know if I can defeat you, but if you hurt her, I will try.”

Khono smiles at this, despite the threat. He says, “ _He is the khaleesi’s blood, and he will defend her. He is making the bride threat._ ”

Drogo also smiles and jovially claps a giant hand on Jon’s shoulder. “ _Finally, something with a spine can be found in the city of Pentos!”_ he says. “ _This is good. I had begun to wonder what kind of girl she could be, with no one willing to fight for her. She must be worth something after all_.”

Khono says, “The khal is glad someone is willing to take up arms for his bride. He will honor her as if she is the moon come down from the sky. If ever she is treated less than she deserves, you may challenge him to a duel, or pay the bride-price to dissolve the marriage.”

Jon blinked at this, surprised. “Oh,” he says. He had not expected to be simply handed what he wanted. A little confused, he says, “Thank you. Tell the khal that I will serve him loyally if he does.” This prompted great smiles, and Jon was invited to meet what felt like half the khalasar and join in their revelries. He left several hours later, slightly drunk and quite bewildered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What Jon doesn’t know is that he’s accidentally stumbled into some Dothraki wedding traditions of my own invention. Many Dothraki never marry and instead have informal agreements made between the people in the relationship. In the case of marriage, it is expected that several of the bride’s male relatives show that they value the bride by threatening the groom on her behalf. Basically, if at some point the bride’s family thinks she is being mistreated, those relatives have the right to challenge the husband to a duel. If they win, the marriage is dissolved. They could also pay a bride-price in livestock in place of a duel, but this is tantamount to admitting weakness and frowned upon, since the Dothraki follow strength. A bride who doesn’t have someone willing to defend her has been deemed worthless by her family and becomes vulnerable to mistreatment not just by her husband but by everyone else in the khalasar.  
> One of the circumstances where marriage is most common in Dothraki culture is in the creation of a fledgling khalasar, or in powerful outsiders looking to join an existing khalasar. Typically a group of young men will decide to leave the khalasar of their birth and start their own. There will be ceremonial duels and archery contests to determine who will be khal. Some others will become kos or bloodriders. Any women in a fledgling khalasar are close relatives, usually sisters, of the young men founding it. The khalasar is tied together through marriages between these sisters and the kos and khal. Then they go around raiding non-Dothraki peoples, looting and capturing people, participating in battles, and having duels-to-the-death between their khal and the khals of other small khalasars with the winner incorporating the loser’s people into their own ranks, and generally growing their numbers and power. There is a high turnover rate, as many fledgling khalasars are split apart and subsumed by others. When a khal starts gathering power, enough that other kos or khals want to join, marriage is a common way to do it, but a marriage (at least a marriage of a female outsider to a ko or khal) implies that both parties are powerful and respected. So Jon has accidentally completed the rituals that sets the Targs up as powerful outsiders who want to become loyal and influential followers.


	2. These Happy Golden Moons

Daenerys’ marriage got off to a good start. Drogo made a show out of courting Daenerys’ favor at the wedding feast, speaking to her through an interpreter, never straying far from her side, and lavishing her with gifts of fur, spices, jewelry, handmaidens, and a horse. He also gave Jon a horse, along with the full kit of a Dothraki warrior: leather armor, bow and quiver of arrows fletched with auspicious feathers to make his shots fly true, and an arakh. He ignored Viserys. The magister, of course, couldn’t allow anyone’s generosity to surpass his own, and gave Daenerys an exiled Northerner sworn sword and stunning gift: three dragon eggs.

Jon was rather insulted that Daenerys had a sworn sword that wasn’t him, as he’d been preparing for the role his whole life, but was intrigued by this man who came from his mother’s people, who knew his mother’s family. The next day the khalasar left Pentos. After checking that Daenerys was okay--she seemed to be in fairly high spirits, chattering away with her new handmaidens--Jon went to ride with “Jorah the Andal,” grilling him for information on the Starks and the North. He learned that Jorah had fought with his uncle in the war against the Ironborn, that he had distinguished by a knighting, that Jon apparently looked very much like his uncle (more than his oldest son did, in fact), that he had married a Southron wife with expensive taste, and that Jorah had been exiled from Westeros for selling poachers into slavery to fund said wife’s expensive tastes. Jon made a mental note to tell Daenerys this as soon as possible--she would want to know, and she would be mad if he concealed this information from her. This story made it unlikely for Ser Jorah to gain Daenerys’ confidence. Jon also noted that the man was likely to have a grudge against the Starks, and with him not only having Stark blood but also looking just like the man who had banished him that was likely to extend to him as well. It seemed that neither of them would be able to trust Ser Jorah, at least not completely.

Living with the Dothraki was unlike anything Jon had experienced before. He was used to cityscapes or the sea--the grasslands were as foreign to him as the Dothraki people were. He had to learn a new language and how to fight with a new weapon. The Dothraki seemed impressed by his spars with Ser Arthur, and perhaps because of this were patient with his early fumblings with the arakh and with his archery skills, which were subpar by their standards. Every day was a physical and mental challenge as Jon learned the Dothraki language and culture and pushed his body to its limits learning to ride and shoot as the Dothraki do.

The khalasar traveled at a leisurely pace, riding for several hours a day but making camp well before sunset, leaving several hours for sparring, cooking, racing, dancing, and other activities. Daenerys was picking up the Dothraki language at a furious pace, and at camp went around having faltering conversations with the people, being offered choice bits of food, and invited to join songs and dances. When she wasn’t out amongst the khalasar she was with Drogo or her handmaidens in her tent. Jon missed Daenerys--he saw her every day, sat beside her at meals and spent time with her and her handmaidens in her tent, but it was nothing like before, when for large parts of the day they had been each other’s only company. There were so many others, now, competing for Daenerys’ attention.

Of course, there were others seeking Jon’s attention too. Several Dothraki women and girls made advances towards him. Jon knew that the Dothraki didn’t have a concept of bastardy, and that in many cases Dothraki fathers had nothing to do with raising their children, so there would be no expectations on him to be a father if he sired a child, but even so, he didn’t feel comfortable with the chance of bringing a child into the world. Finding ways to avoid women and turn down advances without incurring offense was as great a challenge to his diplomatic skills as learning the Dothraki tongue was to his mind or the Dothraki way of riding and fighting was for his body. As it was he gained a reputation as a prude. This was a serious insult to the Dothraki, and only the Kingsguard refusing similar advances prevented Jon from losing status. Instead it was written off as a Westerosi peculiarity.

After about a moon Jon faced his first skirmish. A scout came back with news of another khalasar nearby, and Drogo and his warriors set out to meet them in battle. The fight was disorienting, with so many sounds and moving bodies. Drogo’s khalasar won--it was practically inevitable, they had much larger numbers--and set out to find the women and children of the other khalasar and bring them back to their own. Daenerys was there waiting with food and bandages.

* * *

Daenerys was surprised by how much she liked her husband. She hadn’t set her expectations very high--the Dothraki were known slavers, and Khal Drogo’s dreams of conquest, for all they drew her in, made her think he might be a bit too willing to resort to violence. Drogo presented a softer side of himself to his wife--she saw his gentleness and affection for his horse, his patience with her as she stumbled her way through her sentences to him, his tenderness when he spoke of his desire for a son, his fondness for his little brother Rakharo.

That first battle was a reminder to her that there was more to him than she saw. As she oversaw the preparation of bandages, herbs, poultices, and other things for the expected wounded, she pondered the nature of violence and of war. When was war justified? The Westerosi would consider this battle wanton violence--the other khalasar hadn’t done anything to provoke Drogo, they just wandered across his path with smaller numbers. They would call Drogo a warmonger. But those same Westerosi admired Aegon the Conqueror, and what was he but a warmonger? He had cause to move against Argilac the Arrogant, but no cause and no claim to any of the other kingdoms. He had slaughtered hundreds of men at the Field of Fire. Yet the Conquest and the unification of Westeros had been good for Westeros as a whole, limiting wars between the Seven Kingdoms, improving trade, making travel between kingdoms safer, and lowering the number of people who died in winter. That was what Daenerys had been taught. So wouldn’t Drogo’s violence eventually be justified if he stopped the Dothraki from warring with each other and the other peoples of Essos?

She wondered what motivated conquerors. Was it simply power? Or something else? Aegon the Conqueror was said to be fascinated with mainland Westeros in his youth; had he loved those lands before he conquered them? Had his curiosity spurred the Conquest? Did he ever think of the good of the people? She wondered if she would ever trust Drogo enough to ask him what had set him on his course.

Around the time she realized she was pregnant she began speaking to Drogo of slavery. The Dothraki practiced slavery, but in a slightly different way than the rest of Essos. The Dothraki did not directly split up families. Their slaves had free time. Integration existed; it was possible to enter Dothraki society as a slave and rise to become a ko, a bloodrider, or a khaleesi. Society was less stratified, and there was more interaction and less distinction between the enslaved and the free both at work and at play. If one could overlook the constant war and the uncertainty it brought as khalasars constantly grew and shrank, combined and splintered, it was better to be a Dothraki slave than a slave in one of the “Free” Cities. Daenerys hoped that the stories she knew would shock and disgust even the most battle-hardened Dothraki screamer.

She spoke to Drogo of the differences between his people and the cities of Essos, of the things she’d seen and what was only whispered of, and the enormous strength and resilience of the slaves she’d known. Then she began to introduce her idea. Drogo, she found, had a certain disdain for cityfolk. He thought that uniting the Dothraki would be the hard part of his plan, and that the cities of Essos would fall without too much hassle. He thought the Dothraki were inherently stronger, and once they directed their collective force at something it was bound to fall before them. Daenerys began to suggest that the masters were weak, that the slaves had that strength by which the Dothraki defined themselves, and were the kind of people he wanted to build his empire with. They could bridge the gap between the differences of their culture and the Dothraki ways. And if he abolished slavery, and promised freedom to all those who fell under his domain, that would divide the cities further. The slaves would rise up, overthrow their masters, and open the gates before him. She thought she was making progress, as her pregnancy advanced and they traveled towards Vaes Dothrak. Drogo was not as receptive to her moral argument for abolition, but he could see the political uses for it. Moreover, Drogo had become fond of her. She dreamed as big as he did. He was willing to indulge her compassion even when he didn’t feel it himself. Every day he did more things showing how high in his favor she was--he gave her more and more power in the running of the khalasar.

When they reached Vaes Dothrak, the city was humming with tension. The other khals felt threatened by Drogo’s plan, which was quite reasonable since Drogo had outright stated he aimed to defeat them all. There were several other khalasars at Vaes Dothrak, including two others who had come to see the Dosh Khaleen for pregnancies. The people of the other khalasars looked at Drogo and his men with either veiled fear or defiance. Yet the people who lived in Vaes Dothrak seemed to support Drogo, for the most part. They believed in Dothraki strength, and wanted to see it spill out of the grasslands to dominate Essos. They didn’t understand why the Dothraki were content to accept bribes from cities and leave them in peace when they could easily overrun them.

The day came to come before the Dosh Khaleen and receive their prophecies for the khals’ unborn children. Of the three women who came before them, two were khaleesis, and one only a concubine. The concubine went first. She had the intricately beaded and braided hair of the people the Dothraki called the Lamb Men. She had likely entered Dothraki society as a slave, but she had risen through the ranks. She ate her horse’s heart with aggressive determination. She gagged but did not vomit. The Dosh Khaleen prophesied that her child would be a son, but would not be strong enough to become a khal.

Next came the other khaleesi. She was from a fledgling khalasar. She was lovely and vivacious, but eating the raw horse’s heart was clearly a struggle for her. It wiped the smile off her face. She vomited halfway through. The Dosh Khaleen predicted that her child would be a girl who would make an advantageous marriage to a khal, joining two khalasars together.

Daenerys went last. She had been preparing for this for weeks, eating raw meat until it didn’t phase her anymore, which had been done so covertly that she thought it must be forbidden. Her suspicion that Drogo was trying to manipulate the system to receive a favorable prophecy seemed vindicated when a woman with such a strong resemblance to Drogo she could only be his mother stepped forward. With a clear, carrying voice she announced that Daenerys would bear a son who would be the Stallion Who Mounts the World, as great a conqueror as his Valyrian ancestors.

* * *

Three very important things happened over the course of the next two weeks. The first happened the very next day. Drogo had decided to celebrate the prophecy of the Dosh Khaleen with a great feast that would last three days and three nights. On the second night of revelry, a very drunk Viserys approached Drogo and Daenerys.

Daenerys had not seen much of Viserys since her marriage. He was not making any effort to assimilate, instead hanging at the back of the khalasar and riding one of the food wagons. The Dothraki soon judged him as a coward and a weakling and decided to ignore him. He spent his time with the Kingsguard or a Lyseni prostitute he favored that the Magister had gifted him. Daenerys pitied the woman, who always looked miserable when Viserys appeared before her to ask why Drogo wasn’t invading Westeros yet. Daenerys, who had a lot of practice navigating her brother’s bad moods and preposterous ideas, always managed to soothe him by pointing out that Drogo hadn’t united all the Dothraki under the Targaryen banner yet. Once he had managed that, and Viserys had the largest force possible, _then_ they would turn their eyes towards Westeros, she reassured him.

Viserys had grown tired of her platitudes and had evidently decided to approach Drogo himself….at the worst possible time, in the worst possible way. They were in the Dothraki’s holy ground, where weapons were forbidden, and he approached Drogo with an unsheathed dagger. Viserys was so drunk that his hands trembled and the dagger wobbled in his grip. “Where’s my army?” he said. “Dany, tell this barbarian that he has to give me my army!”

Daenerys mentally cringed from where she stood at Drogo’s side. This conversation was never going to go well, but it was best done in private, not before the entire khalasar and a number of guests. And to carry a weapon when he did it? Regardless of the taboo breaking--which was something Drogo couldn’t be seen as tolerating--approaching the khal with a weapon drawn was a challenge. And no khal could afford to be seen as weak in responding to a challenge. She realized immediately that this was not going to end well. Still, she tried to do what she could. “Brother, the great khal is your host, your ally, and your goodbrother,” she said. She heard someone beginning to translate her words to Drogo. “There is no reason to approach him in such a manner. Please, this is a celebration! A celebration of our family getting just a little bit bigger. I know you worry that the Usurper still plots against all who share our blood, but let us be merry tonight. Your concerns can wait until the celebration is over.” Though she kept her tone light she tried to convey with her eyes the seriousness of the situation.

She had tried to keep her rebuke mild, even as she tried to warn Viserys of the danger, but all he saw was that his little sister reproached him. In a flash he was incandescent with anger. “I am the king!” he roared, backhanding her across the face. “You do not get to question me! _Don’t wake the dragon_!” Then suddenly the tip of the dagger was pressed against her belly. “We had a deal!” Viserys yelled at Drogo. “You got to fuck my sister, and I got an army. Well if I don’t get an army than you don’t get a child! I’ll carve your bastard out of her belly and take her back to Pentos! I’ll find someone else who can give me my crown!”

Drogo’s face was dark with anger. He made a gesture, and two of his bloodriders restrained Viserys. Other men had to wrestle the Kingsguard to the ground to prevent them from going to Viserys’ aid. “I’ll give you your crown,” Drogo said menacingly. He repeated it in Valyrian. He plucked a medallion from his chest, dropped it into a pot, and put it over a fire. Viserys, who had relaxed, began to struggle weakly again, more out of confusion than anything else. “What’s going on?” he said. “What are you doing?” Fear dawned in his eyes as Drogo approached him with a pot of molten gold, and he called out for help.

Daenerys felt numb as her brother died. A resounding emptiness filled her chest. _Jon was right_ , she thought dazedly, _Jon was right all along_. She had thought that, despite Viserys’ maliciousness, their shared blood meant something. She thought they had a duty to each other. She thought that despite his meanness he wouldn’t directly harm her. But Jon was right--he had always said that at some point they would have to abandon Viserys for her own safety. And now that time had come--except instead of leaving Viserys to futilely plot ways to reclaim the Iron Throne on his own, protected and provided for by the loyal Kingsguard, she had to stand and watch in silence as he died, lest he pull her down with him.

She had two thoughts as her brother gasped his last gurgling breaths. The first was, _Maybe it would have been better if I had run away with Jon a year ago_. The second she voiced aloud. “He was no true dragon,” she said softly in Dothraki, as his body collapsed. “Fire cannot kill a dragon.”

* * *

The Kingsguard was upset that Viserys had been killed. They wanted revenge. They wanted her to leave her marriage, flee the Dothraki, and marry Jon to unite their claims once they reached the Free Cities again. To seek the Starks for support. But Daenerys was their queen now, and she did not harbor any such foolish ideas. She told them to stand down and they did.

She had to prove to them that she could be just as obstinate as her brother had been. The first test was in shooting down their half-baked schemes of revenge and escape. The second test came a few days later.

The pronouncement of the Dosh Khaleen that her son would be the Stallion Who Mounts the World, though overshadowed in Daenerys’ mind by her brother’s death, had electrified the Dothraki. Even those who had been most mistrustful of Drogo before were reconsidering their stance. A number of people left the other khalasars at Vaes Dothrak to join Drogo’s, and some influential kos made formal offers of alliances.

These came with proposed marriages for Jon.

The Kingsguard were horrified by this. Daenerys could tell what they were thinking--it was bad enough that she had been wasted on an alliance with a barbarian. They couldn’t allow it to happen to Rhaegar’s son too. But Jon did not care what they thought: he looked to her.

Drogo felt inclined to accept the marriage proposal. Daenerys was not in a position to refuse him this--not without a reason. More than that, she found she did not want to oppose him. She was committed to this course--if her marriage hadn’t been enough to do it her child certainly was. She had to stick to it, to do the things that would help her child succeed and prosper. This marriage would help Drogo consolidate power, and by extension help her son as well. It was in their best interest to go through with it.

So it was that Jon became engaged to a bright-eyed Dothraki girl named Emmi. Her name came from the word “to smile,” and it was appropriate--Emmi was jovial and light-hearted, a good contrast to Jon’s propensity to sullenness. Emmi was witty and quick-witted, and within half an hour Jon was taken with her. On their wedding day he blushed more than she did.

* * *

There was one more momentous thing that happened before they left Vaes Dothrak. After the Dosh Khaleen’s pronouncement, the people of Vaes Dothrak recognized Daenerys everywhere she went. They would greet her with joyous exclamations, and make offerings--bolts of cloth, a child carrier to attach to the side of a saddle, traditional Dothraki jewelry and pottery, and most commonly, food and wine. Everyone wanted Daenerys to eat from their pot--sharing food was an important aspect of Dothraki hospitality.

So Daenerys did not think it was anything unusual when the wine merchant offered her a cup. She was reaching out to take it when Jorah slapped the cup out of her hand. “Don’t take it, Khaleesi, it is poisoned!” he yelled. “This man is an assassin!”

This announcement nearly started a riot. The wine seller tried to escape, but couldn’t; the crowd seized him and found a dagger, a pouch of Westerosi coins, and a small, half-empty vial in the folds of his clothes.

The Westerosi coins, stamped with the profile of King Robert himself, proved that the man had been sent by Daenerys’ enemies rather than Drogo’s. This was the first time he had really cared about Westeros. Daenerys knew he had never intended to take the Iron Throne for her brother, knew that he had been more or less indifferent to their plight. But now it was personal. Robert Baratheon had tried to kill not just his wife but his heir, not just his heir but the Stallion Who Mounts the World. Drogo vowed to cross the Narrow Sea, to kill the Usurper, and take the Iron Throne for his son. His blood would rule both Westeros and Essos, he cried.

Jon had been with his new wife at the time of the assassination attempt. He was distraught. More than that, he was asking questions. “How could the Usurper know where we are?” he asked. “I thought the Spider had ‘little birds’ only in the cities. And how did Ser Jorah know that the wine was poisoned, when so many others have been offering you food and drink?”

Ser Jorah could not answer this question in a satisfactory manner. His belongings were searched, correspondence with the Spider was found, and he was put to death alongside the wine seller as a spy. His pleas that he had stopped the attempt fell on deaf ears.

Fearful that other assassins might have been placed in the city, the khalasar vanished back into the Grass Sea. In the wake of the assassination attempt, a taster was added to Daenerys’ retinue. Since Daenerys was now lacking a sworn sword, Jon volunteered for that position, and received that and some other honors as well. When he married Emmi Drogo had made him a _ko_. Now he crafted a new position and bestowed it upon him: linekeeper. This was a radical change to the way Dothraki society worked. Those closest to the khal were the bloodriders, who vowed to join the khal in all things: victory, defeat, death. Linekeepers were meant to be a similarly prestigious position, but with a different direction: if anything happened to Drogo, his bloodriders were supposed to avenge him and then follow him into death. The linekeepers were meant to outlive him, to raise, guard, and educate his children, and to protect their inheritance. Drogo meant to make khal an inheritable position, which was unheard of in Dothraki culture: since they followed strength, everything a man had he must earn himself. Khal’s sons often became khals, but they did not inherit their father’s khalasar, which was what Drogo intended. It was the first step to his creation of an empire, and a dynasty.

Then the khalasar reached a Lhazareen settlement, and everything went wrong.


	3. Fire and Blood Makes a Dragon

Mirri Maaz Dur was a snake in the grass. Daenerys had made some progress with Drogo--his men no longer took captives to sell them into slavery. However, while Daenerys had convinced him not to forcibly remove people from their homes, she hadn’t had similar success instituting codes of conduct for how the Dothraki should treat other people while passing through their territory. Drogo argued that pillaging was natural and could not be prevented, and even brought up as an example the sack of King’s Landing.

So the Dothraki were still stealing, killing, and raping when they swept through the Lhazareen settlement. Daenerys had stepped in when she found a woman being raped in the burnt-out remains of a house. Mirri had said that the Dothraki had killed all her family, and had nowhere to go. Daenerys offered her a place in her household. Over the next two weeks Mirri listened attentively when Daenerys spoke of Drogo’s plans, and hers, and said she wanted to be a part of this new kind of empire. That she wanted to help. That was why she volunteered to treat Drogo’s wound.

But Drogo’s condition kept deteriorating. Daenerys was grateful when she went into early labor because it meant Drogo could rest without officially being unable to ride. Then Daenerys lost consciousness after the birth, and Jon found Mirri trying to smother her son while she was unconscious. After that it all came out: Mirri had deliberately sabotaged Drogo’s recovery, and slipped Daenerys herbs to induce labor in the hopes that her child wouldn’t survive. She didn’t believe that Daenerys wanted to prevent what had happened to her from happening to others, or perhaps she didn’t care. She just wanted revenge.

She succeeded. Drogo died on the same day his son, his  _ heir _ , was born. The khalasar began to splinter as word of his death trickled out. Daenerys gathered the kos and bloodriders and asked them to swear oaths to her, but Jon was the only one willing to do so (though Emmi’s family was willing to swear to her son). “It is not our way,” they said. Jon’s support actually made things worse, since he was as much an outsider as she was.

Daenerys was perhaps a little desperate as she arranged Drogo’s funeral pyre. Mirri was to be burned alive upon it; then the bloodriders would deliver her to the Dosh Khaleen, and her son would be given to Jon to raise. She was musing that when she lit Drogo’s pyre she would watch all her hopes go up in flames, when she thought:  _ Wait. That’s not right _ . Hadn’t she thought, when Viserys died, that fire cannot kill a dragon? Fire does not kill a dragon. It makes them stronger. How then could this fire destroy her? And with a flash of insight she thought of her House words:  _ fire and blood _ . It was commonly taken as a warning, of what would befall House Targaryens’ enemies, but why would her House make their words about other people? Maybe fire and blood was what dragons were made of. Were what made dragons.

Jon hadn’t believed her. They fought, and only Jon’s promise not to control her the way her father had her mother, the way Viserys had wanted to do to her, prevented him from physically restraining her from stepping in the fire. But it worked, as she knew it would, and when the fire burned to ashes she was unhurt, with three dragons curled around her shoulders.

Jon’s eyes were the first she met as the smoke cleared. She smiled. “The dragon has three heads.”


	4. A Waiting Game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One day the dragons will be the most fearsome military force in the world, but right now they need a safe place to grow.

After the dragons hatched, the kos and bloodriders agreed to swear to Daenerys. That was good; but it did not answer the question of what to do next. In a few years, the dragons would make Daenerys one of the most formidable forces in the world, but at the present, the dragons were small, their hides were soft, and there were many who would want to kill them before they could grow into their potential for deadliness. The same could be said for Daenerys’ infant son. Rhaello was supposed to be the Stallion Who Mounts the World, but what if the world decided it did not want to be mounted? Daenerys thought it would go against the Dothraki religion to kill Rhaello, but she was also sure that there was someone out there who would do it anyway. Other khals wanted to _remain_ khals, after all.

Jon and Daenerys conferred amongst themselves and decided several things. First, they should remain in the Grass Sea for as long as possible, and try to avoid other khalasars. Second, they should try to prevent the word of the dragons’ hatching from spreading for as long as possible. Third, the babies--of both the dragon and the human kind--had to be with one of them or with an armed guard at all times. Fourth, they would need a plan for what to do if they came across another khalasar. The other khal’s instinct would be to meet them in battle, or challenge a one-on-one duel, with the winner absorbing the loser’s khalasar in either case. If it came to a duel, who should fight? The Dothraki would see anyone having another fight in their stead as weakness. If Daenerys was to lead, it would undercut her position to have Jon or one of the Kingsguard fight for her.

The Kingsguard had not put up much of a fuss when Daenerys decided to walk into the fire. They would obey their monarch even when that monarch’s orders harmed said monarch. Now, however, they had very strong opinions, and wanted them to be heard. Again they said that Daenerys and Jon should marry to unite their claims. Daenerys dismissed this out of hand. She trusted Jon absolutely; she did not need a marriage to calm fears that didn’t exist. Furthermore, Jon was _already_ married, to a wonderful woman, who had been very supportive of Daenerys and urged her family to do the same. Their support had been instrumental in holding the khalasar together in the time between Drogo’s death and the dragons’ hatching--some had left but not nearly as much as usual, when a khal died. Daenerys would not repay such loyalty with betrayal, and she was annoyed that the Kingsguard kept suggesting it. She was annoyed at the implication that she needed to have a husband, but more than that she was annoyed at how little they valued the Dothraki and their customs. Dothraki marriages apparently meant nothing to them.

The one thing that the Kingsguard suggested that Daenerys did agree to was to seek out news of Westeros, and even that she did in a manner they disapproved of. They thought they should go to any city except Pentos, as they did not trust the Magister, who had suggested the Dothraki marriage _and_ introduced the spy into their number. Daenerys agreed that the Magister was not to be trusted but sent them to Pentos anyway. She would send one of her handmaidens into the city, she announced, who would arrange a meeting with Minna, one of the “servants” in the Magister’s house.

The khalasar as a whole stayed hidden in the edges of the Grass Sea. A small party disguised as merchants made their way into the city. They came back with ten more people than had left--all “servants” from the Magister’s house. They came with news from Westeros that completely disrupted Jon and Daenerys’ plans: the Usurper was dead. His brothers had declared his children to be bastards born of incest between the queen and her brother. There was also an accusation that the Lannisters had killed Jon Arryn because he had discovered this. The Lannister-named-Baratheon occupying the throne had killed Lord Stark and was now facing a war with both the Baratheons and Starks.

The Kingsguard was ecstatic. This was the opportunity they had been waiting for. The Starks had split with the Iron Throne, and considering Jon were now natural Targaryen allies. With the Starks came the Tullys and the Arryns. With a marriage alliance with the Tyrells they could easily sweep the Lannisters off the map, maybe without even needing the dragons.

There was just one problem with this: Daenerys wanted to free the slaves. And with dragons that dream finally seemed achievable on a mass scale. She did not want to leave Essos. “But Jon,” she said, “you have family there. You could go. And it would be good, for me, to have allies--”

Jon made a derisive sound. “A bastard king and a Dothraki queen? They would never accept that.” He looked at her pleadingly. “I’ll do it if you ask of me, but please do not ask it of me. You know I’ve never wanted to be a king. And I don’t want to leave you.”

“Very well,” Daenerys said. “We are resolved then. The affairs of Westeros have no bearing on us.”

* * *

For a while, they wandered fairly aimlessly. They went to Myr, and to Qohor, where the cities made offerings of gold to send the khalasar away again. It was Minna who suggested what to do next.

Daenerys was fretful and restless. The Great Grass Sea was an excellent place to disappear from the far-away Westerosi, or even the Essosi, but it was only a matter of time before they ran into another khalasar. There might be one or two khals seeking them out already, to take her to the Dosh Khaleen if nothing else. How long would it be before their luck ran out? And what would happen when it did? They had decent numbers, but neither Jon nor Daenerys had experience leading men into battle, and other khals would see a khalasar led by a woman as a weakness waiting to be taken advantage of. Daenerys trained hard every day, with the arakh and the bow, but she was not confident in her ability to defeat a battle-hardened khal in a duel.

It rankled, that she was raising her son in fear, constantly looking over her shoulder, running from place to place, as she had herself grown up. It was everything she didn’t want for Rhaello. She had hoped his childhood would have stability. Security. But what other choice was there? There was nowhere safe to go, and while the dragons would one day be enough to conquer a city on their own they needed time and a safe place to grow.

“What you need is an army,” Minna said. “An army to defend you, to take a place and fortify it. And I know where you can get one.” She continued to outline an outrageous plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve made some changes to names. Since Daenerys knows a good deal more about Rhaegar, and Jon has a fairly negative view of him, she does not name her son after him. Instead she names him after her mother. The dragons have different names too--canon Drogon is Vaellys, named after the girl who made Daenerys decide to start her crusade against slavery. Canon Rhaegal is Rhaegon, named after Rhaenys and Aegon by Jon. Canon Viserion is Valonqar, Rhaello’s “little brother.”


	5. Astapor

Jon and the Kingsguard were surprised and confused when she announced her intention to go to Astapor. She did not say what she intended to do, but there were only so many reasons someone went to Astapor. To Jon she said, “Trust me,” and to the Kingsguard she did her best imitation of Viserys at his most obstinate.

Her dislike of slavery was not well known--she supposed no one had thought it important to take note of her opinions before now--so the Masters of Astapor believed her, when she turned up at their gate and said she wanted to buy ships and an army and take advantage of the unrest in Westeros to retake her throne. She put up a good pretense of bargaining. Quickly it became clear that all the gold that they had collected from Myr and from Qohor was not enough to buy both a fleet and an army. Not even close. Finally in a fit of mock exasperation she offered a dragon. “Surely a dragon is enough to cover the costs of both,” she said. “All the Unsullied you have, and all your ships too.”

Ser Arthur, her guard at the time, startled. “Your Grace,” he said. “Surely you cannot mean to sell one of your dragons--”

Daenerys cut him off. “I have two riders, I have need of no more than two dragons,” she said coldly.

She had brought Vaellys, the largest of her dragons, and the one who seemed to intuitively understand her, to the meeting on a delicate golden leash, ostensibly as an intimidation tactic. Now she handed that leash over in return for a whip. The Master issued a command, which Vaellys did not respond to, and she smiled. “ _Zaldrizes buzdari iksos daor._ ” At that, Vaellys tugged on the lead and easily snapped the chain. He spat fire at the Master while Daenerys ordered her new army to take the city.

* * *

There were a lot of things to do after the fighting ended: sort the dead, find places for the Dothraki to sleep, feed the many newly freedpeople, reunite separated family members, find guardians for dead masters’ children, convince the Unsullied that they were freed when they barely understood what that meant. They had all agreed to fight for her--paid, of course--but she thought it might be because they did not really have an idea of what else to do. What else did they know but fighting? Could they even imagine being something other than a soldier?

Despite how many things she had to do, Daenerys found her mind straying at odd times to the translator who had spoken for the master when Daenerys feigned not understanding Valyrian. Missandei was her name--a very pretty name. Missandei was about Daenerys’ age, with lovely curls and bright dark eyes. She spoke nineteen languages, or so she was told, which was very impressive. She was witty and clever and she’d taken a leadership role among the freedpeople, showing both competence and compassion, taking stock of who was there, who had died, which children didn’t have guardians, who needed new places to sleep, the names and last known locations of those the freedpeople wanted to be reunited with. Missandei, Daenerys thought, had all the makings of a truly great advisor. She’d offer her a place in city leadership, she thought as she went to bed.

She did so the next day. Missandei accepted, and soon proved herself to be invaluable, reuniting family members left and right, arranging passage on ships for those who wished to return to their homelands, recommending qualified freedpeople for important positions, and setting up a system to help people find work. She also took on a leading role in the project to reacclimate the Unsullied to life as free people. In this she had a personal motivation, as she had two brothers amongst the Unsullied who no longer recognized her. She was an invaluable source of both information and ideas. The Unsullied were different from the other slaves--when it came to most slaves, the masters had relied on fear and force to suppress their bodies, with little concern as to what went on in their minds. With the Unsullied, they tried to control both mind and body, used indoctrination and dehumanization to try to wipe out every hope of living a better life, and eradicate all sense of personhood. This was done systematically and from a very young age. This trauma could not be undone overnight. Years of being beaten or worse for any speck of individuality, for any hint of having personal desires, or feeling affection for another person, made it difficult for them to make even very small choices, to express any of their thoughts, or even try to bond with other people. The more Daenerys learned about it, the more sickened she grew. The monsters who had created the Unsullied training program deserved a special kind of hell.

She felt reassured by the knowledge that she was doing everything she could to make sure it never happened again. She had burned the masters’ books and records, confiscated their wealth, destroyed their statues and defaced their tombs. Anyone who ever tried such a thing again would have to start from scratch, and with the understanding that she would not only kill them, but do her very best to erase their name from history and human memory.

The wives and children of the masters were offended by this, of course, but Daenerys had come up with a solution to that. The families of the slave-owners had to realize that the slaves were people. That the Unsullied especially were _people_ . The Unsullied also needed to learn that they were people. Why not have them learn from each other? Fairly early on Missandei had suggested breaking the Unsullied into small groups and pairing them with freedman families, to relearn what it is to be human through observation and interaction with a loving family, while not depriving themselves of company that understood what they’d been through. To these groups Daenerys added the children and wives of slave owners. Her hope was that the former master class would become attached, in such close contact, and as a result come to see slaves as not some faceless distant bloc but as individuals, as their own neighbors, who they _knew_ were people, who they _knew_ had suffered. They would learn to see the horrors of what they and their forebears had done, and none of their children would grow up desiring a return to the old ways. This program also had the added benefit of allowing freedpeople to monitor the former slaver class for rebellious activity.

Daenerys led by example. She added to her personal household five Unsullied including Missandei’s brothers, five freedman scribes including Missandei, and five children of masters who were made orphans during the taking of the city. Between her Dothraki handmaidens and bloodriders, the Kingsguard, Rhaello, Jon, Emmi, and these new arrivals, her chambers were always loud and crowded, full of laughter, conversations, music, and games. It was a very happy contrast to so much of Daenerys’ childhood--she had always been well provided for, for which she was thankful, but often the places she’d lived had been quiet and empty during the day, always too large for how few people had lived there, with the majority of the Kingsguard off working and herself and Jon quietly studying and tiptoeing around Viserys’ ever-worsening moods. Then raised voices meant fear and anger, not laughter.

Some weeks after Daenerys had taken the city, when she had devised and implemented a number of plans and was beginning to wonder if taking Yunkai was a reasonable goal with only the khalasar’s forces (she had decided not to use the Unsullied as an army until they had adjusted to life as freedmen, and understood how many other options they had than fighting), a man came to her open audience, wanting to speak with her. She had no more than registered that he was Westerosi when Ser Arthur and Ser Gerold advanced towards this man with weapons drawn. “Traitor!” Ser Arthur snarled, sounding truly hurt, and Daenerys realized that this must be one of the turncloak Kingsguard. From his age and his white hair she guessed it was Ser Barristan.

Ser Barristan threw his sword at his former brothers’ feet and held his hands up to show that he was unarmed. “Mercy!” he said. “Mercy, Your Grace, I beg you! Please. I know I have wronged you, and now I have come to face whatever justice Your Grace deems fit.”

“Allow him to speak,” Daenerys said. “Barristan the Bold. While my brother lived you served my House well. But since Rhaegar fell you have knelt at the Usurper’s side. Why have you come here now?”

“I was wrong to break my oaths to House Targaryen,” Barristan said. “I know that now. I have come to swear my sword to House Targaryen again, if you will allow it, or to face whatever penalty you deem fit. You are the rightful queen of Westeros. The people need you. The Lannisters will lead Westeros to ruin! Tywin Lannister’s daughter has declared herself queen regent, against her husband’s last wishes, I saw her tear up his will with my own eyes!”

“That is the least of the Lannisters’ crimes against House Baratheon, if the rumors coming out of Westeros now are true,” Daenerys said. “Tell me, ser, you knew them. Do you believe the Lannister woman’s children to be bastards born of incest?”

“It is true, the children had little resemblance to His--I mean, the Usurper,” Ser Barristan said. “Aye, I do believe it. I do not want to believe that a Kingsguard would sully his cloak thus, but Jaime Lannister--”

“Do not speak of another’s failings when you are guilty of the same!” Ser Arthur thundered.

“Jaime Lannister and I are not the same! I did not kill Aerys!” Ser Barristan cried.

“But you bent the knee to Robert Baratheon while he was still alive! While Princess Elia and Prince Aegon were still alive!” Ser Arthur said. “And you were an experienced soldier who had served for many years, who had known Aerys before the Defiance of Duskendale, who had indeed carried him out of that hell and understood better than anyone else why he became what he did. Jaime was little more than a green boy who saw Aerys only at his worst and who was ordered by the king to become a kinslayer. That his loyalty faltered when it came time to face his kin in battle, that his courage wavered when his vows required him to die with his king, I can understand more than you. You should have died at your post, as Prince Lewyn did, as we would have. You are a coward and an oathbreaker, just as much as Lannister.”

“Peace, Ser Arthur,” Daenerys said. “You are right, that Ser Barristan failed my House. But he is also right, that if the rumors are true, Jaime Lannister has not just failed but wronged two. Regardless of their motivations for forsaking my father, Ser Barristan is a truer knight than the other. But I have two questions. First, why did you come to me, when you could have gone to Stannis Baratheon?”

“House Baratheon has proved themselves unworthy of the Iron Throne,” Ser Barristan replied. “K--Robert has driven the Seven Kingdoms into debt, and let his Hands carry out all the duties of his office. Lord Stannis consorts with a Red Woman, and has burned the statues of the Seven on Dragonstone. Lord Renly is a sword-swallower, and claims the throne despite being the younger brother. Joffrey, even if he were legitimate, is a monster. As a child he tortured animals for his amusement, just like Maegor the Cruel. House Baratheon has proven to be unworthy of sitting the Iron Throne. Not a single one of them stands in the Light of the Seven. For such a noble House to deteriorate into barbarism and heathenism so quickly, I can only think it means the Seven have judged that the Iron Throne must be held by House Targaryen, can _only_ be held by House Targaryen."

“Perhaps it is so. It is true that no other House has held as great a territory for any amount of time, much less centuries. My second question is, what would you have done, if it had fallen to you to pass judgement on Tywin Lannister after the Sacking of King’s Landing?”

“I would have him put to death for the murder of Princess Elia and her children, Your Grace,” Ser Barristan said.

“Very well,” Daenerys said. “Ser Barristan, you shall be admitted to my service, but you are no Queensguard of mine. In six moons’ time my Queensguard and I shall reconvene to discuss whether you should be readmitted to their order.”

* * *

After Ser Barristan had knelt to give his vows, and she had heard from everyone else who had come to speak with her that day, Daenerys withdrew to her chambers with her household. “Do you think I ruled well?” she asked Jon nervously, Rhaello in her arms.

“Yes,” Jon said reassuringly.

“Your Grace, how do you know he can be trusted?” Missandei said. “What if he is a spy, or an assassin, like the Northman?” Missandei had learned from Irri and Jhiqui of Ser Jorah Mormont and the attempt against Daenerys’ life in Vaes Dothrak.

“Ser Gerold, you knew Ser Barristan, for many years. You commanded him. Would he do such a thing?” Daenerys asked.

“No, Your Grace,” Ser Gerold said. “He would take no part, in something so underhanded. Perhaps he would try to kill you, if his king commanded it, but he would do it outright, not put up this pretense. I believe him to be true. Your Grace was wise not to reinstate him to your Queensguard immediately, but he could be an invaluable source of information on Westeros. Our attempts to gather intelligence in the Seven Kingdoms, or even to communicate with our families, has been stymied at every turn by the Spider--”

“I do not intend to retake Westeros,” Daenerys said sharply. “There is more good that I could do here.”

“Your Grace, the people of Essos need help, it is true,” Ser Arthur said, “but you have no duty towards them. Your House has protected the Seven Kingdoms and the people of Westeros for three hundred years, and has vowed to serve the Seven Kingdoms in perpetuity. How can you turn your back on your sacred duty, when the people cry out under the rule of a tyrant? How can you allow the blood of your kin, of Elia and Rhaenys and Aegon, to go unavenged?”

“Her Grace’s desire to end slavery is a noble one,” Ser Oswell said. “But she is not the only member of House Targaryen that still lives. For the sake of the people of Westeros, she should renounce her claim to the Iron Throne and send her nephew to take it. His own kin, his cousin Lady Sansa, is now held captive in the Red Keep, with a boy compared to Maegor the Cruel. Do you not remember how many of his atrocities were committed on women? The depravities and perversions he forced upon them? Would you allow your own blood to suffer so, Jon? You have a responsibility towards the girl.”

Jon paused. Bit his lip. For the first time that Daenerys could remember, she saw his resolve waver. “Dany,” he said. “I...I can’t be king. And even if I could, they would never accept Emmi as queen. But, if Joffrey is really as the say, the people need someone. And Sansa…” Daenerys can see his conflict on his face. The plight of Sansa Stark played on two of Jon’s deepest reservoirs of shame and guilt: Sansa, held captive in the Red Keep by a cruel and possibly mad king, resembled Elia and Jon’s poor siblings, whose deaths he felt personally responsible for. Furthermore, Jon felt--and she agreed--that Rhaegar had wronged House Stark, both when he absconded with Lyanna despite her betrothal to his kinsman and when he tricked her into a false marriage. House Targaryen owed a debt to House Stark. Sansa Stark pushed all of Jon’s buttons--he felt obliged to help her. Daenerys felt a flicker of jealousy. Jon had always been hers. For a long time, he was the only thing that was hers--the Kingsguard had belonged to Viserys, the Iron Throne had belonged to Viserys, even she had belonged to Viserys. Jon had been her constant, her rock, through all the turmoil of her life. He had saved Rhaello’s life--Mirri Maaz Dur would have killed him, if he hadn’t been there. He was the only family she had in the world, besides her sons; but the same was not true for him. Would the Starks take him away from her?

That was an unbecoming thought for a queen, she told herself sternly. She had to think of the welfare of the people. She had to think of the good she could do in the world. Was that not what she’d decided, so long ago? As head of House Targaryen she was obligated to help Sansa Stark. More than that, she was in a position to do so. She could, so she must.

“You are right,” she said. “You are both right. Jon, go to the aid of your kin across the sea. Take Ser Gerold with you. Rally whoever you can to the banner of House Targaryen, overthrow the Lannisters, and then return to me.”

“But who will take the Iron Throne?” Ser Oswell said.

“I do not know the lords of Westeros,” Daenerys said. “I cannot judge them. I will give Jon the authority to decide. He will take the measure of the lords.”

“Are you sure, Dany?” Jon asked. He looked daunted by the enormity of this task. His eyes turned to Rhaello. “Who knows how long this will take. When I return, Rhaello could be walking...or speaking...he wouldn’t recognize me. Wouldn’t remember me.”

“He _will_ remember you,” Daenerys promised. “I will never let him forget you. He will know that besides himself you are the person dearest to my heart. I don’t want to be separated either...but it is as Ser Oswell says. The people are suffering. Your family is suffering. We have a duty to them. It is time the Lannisters faced consequences for their crimes.” She paused. Looked down at the dragon in Jon’s lap. “Do you want to take Rhaegon with you?”

“Why would I take Rhaegon with me?” Jon asked. “How could I hide him? I thought we were trying to limit the number of people who knew about the dragons.” So few people had left Astapor after Daenerys had taken the city that it was possible the news hadn’t spread beyond its walls. Certainly Westeros didn’t know yet.

“I think the dragons have proven that they can defend themselves,” Daenerys said with a glance to where Vaellys lazed in the sun.

Jon shook his head. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. I’m not done training him yet. You don’t take an untrained horse or dog into a war--why would you take an untrained dragon? What if he was spooked by something and reacted with fire? It could be a disaster. And I might not have the time to devote to training him in the middle of a war. You’ll need to take over training all the dragons, if I leave.” (Jon had taken responsibility for training the dragons, since Daenerys had the khalasar and then a city to lead. He worked with the dragons for several hours every day. Daenerys tried to join him for at least an hour every day.) Jon scratched Rhaegon under his chin. He was molting, and very itchy. “Besides, it would be cruel to separate him from his brothers. They are the only dragons in the world, they should be with each other.”

“You are a dragon too, Jon,” Daenerys said.

“Only half,” Jon protested with a sad sort of smile.

“If you are to represent House Targaryen in Westeros, you shouldn’t go as a Sand,” Daenerys said. “Let me legitimize you.”

“Not as a Targaryen,” Jon said. “Dany, I love you, but I don’t love the men who have borne your name, and represented our house. I don’t want to inherit anything from them. And if I’m to make peace with the Starks--well, I don’t think they would look fondly on the name, either.”

“Create your own House, then,” Daenerys said. “The first new Great House in Essos. Just let me give you a name, any name.”

Jon rubbed between Rhaegon’s scales, thinking for a moment. His father he could never be fond of. Not after he had abandoned his wife and children, and lied to Jon’s mother. Jon wasn’t sure what to make of his mother either--what kind of woman would run away with a married man? What kind of woman would feel comfortable usurping the place of the children of his first marriage and replacing them with her own? As a child, however, he had adored his mother the knight--his favorite story had been that of the Knight of the Laughing Tree. He still saw something of worth in that story. He would rather be remembered as her son, than of the man who bypassed his wife to set a crown of winter roses in a young girl's lap. And if he was to treat with the Starks, he would want to emphasize his Northern roots… “Lyannason,” he said. “My name will be Lyannason.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so while writing this chapter I got to thinking about the Unsullied, and it just bothers me that they went straight from being slaves to being Daenerys' army. When do they get to heal from their trauma? Like their adjustment to being free is way too fast and way too easy to be realistic. The Unsullied go through such rigorous brainwashing and dehumanization, I would say that it's comparable to Bucky Barnes recovering from the Winter Soldier, and that just doesn't happen overnight. They need time to unlearn the dehumanization, to learn that they are people and that they can make choices. As it is, I kinda think that the Unsullied didn't realize there were other options when they agreed to fight for Daenerys. Not only that she would help them find training for other vocations, but that they could be something other than soldiers. I think that if the Unsullied were given some time to heal and realize that there were other options at least some would decide they didn't want to fight anymore.
> 
> I'm not bashing canon Daenerys, she doesn't know any better and she's trying, which is more than most people in the GOT universe do. I just wanted to try to be more realistic when dealing with the Unsullied men's trauma.
> 
> If you want to read a fic where Daenerys is a badass and tries to eradicate slavery I would recommend "Strangers Again." I don't remember the pseud of the writer that wrote it at the moment but it is great. It's a Dany-centric time travel fix-it fic.
> 
> Also, yes, sadly in this fic Ser Barristan is a homophobe. :(


	6. A Voyage to King's Landing

So it came to pass that the newly dubbed Jon Lyannason set out for Westeros with his wife, two of his aunt’s Queensguard, two Unsullied, and Minna. There had been some debate as to who would go with him--Emmi had insisted on going, despite not speaking a word of the Westerosi Common Tongue. Ser Arthur had nearly come to blows with Ser Barristan over the right to go to Westeros, desiring to seek out the Mountain and avenge Princess Elia, who had been a childhood friend of his. Ultimately, though, it was decided that Ser Barristan and Ser Hightower should go, Ser Barristan because of his up-to-date knowledge of the politics of Westeros, his eyewitness account of Cersei Lannister disregarding Robert’s will, and the shock value of seeing the former Lord Commander of the Baratheon Kingsguard stand against them. Ser Hightower was sent in the hopes that he could rally his influential family, and with them possibly the Reach, against the Lannisters. The two Unsullied she had chosen, one who called himself Red (he had been Red Ant the day Daenerys came, and had decided to drop the “ant” but keep “red” upon seeing it was one of House Targaryen’s colors) and one who called himself Hawk (birds of prey were venerated in the area called Slavers’ Bay, and this was his way of repudiating the system that “named” Unsullied after bugs, vermin, and other pestilential things), were the two who were least reticent when it came to speaking of their experiences. Daenerys stood by her decision not to lead the Unsullied to battle until she was sure that they were choosing to fight for her because they  _ wanted _ to, not because they did not know where else they could go and what else they could do. This meant that she still didn’t have an army. She had decided to send an open invitation to the unlanded people of Westeros, to come join her armies and fight slavers with the opportunity to be granted land in Essos afterwards. Red and Hawk were willing to tell their stories to the Westerosi to inflame the hatred of slavery in their hearts.

Minna came because she revealed that she had contacts in Oldtown and King’s Landing--former slaves she had helped smuggle out of Essos, many of whom now worked in the Citadel or the Red Keep. They could become essential sources of information.

Their ship was crewed with freedmen. It sailed from Astapor, skirted around the Smoking Sea and the ruins of Valyria, stopped at Lys to resupply, and then sailed across the Narrow Sea to King’s Landing. The plan was to stop briefly at King’s Landing, only for a day or so for Minna to collect information from her contacts since Jon couldn’t show his Stark face in the city, then to go to Driftsmark to get in touch with Targaryen loyalists, and then to sail around Dorne to Oldtown for Ser Gerold to present their case to the Hightowers.

That did not happen.

*

Sansa heard a strange clattering sound coming from the hallway outside her chamber. She heard the muted sound of voices in the hallway--the guards outside her door were talking to someone. A woman, by the sound of it. The door opened and two women came in with the biggest laundry basket Sansa had ever seen. It was half-full with sheets, and had little wheels attached to the bottom. Dimly Sansa wondered how on earth they got it up the stairs.

“Linens, miss,” one of the women said while she closed the door. The other one began stripping the bed. The one who had spoken made no move to join her, however. Instead she stepped towards Sansa, leaned in close, and whispered, “My name is Lillandei. Your family has sent me to get you out of here. We must act quickly now.”

Sansa’s heart soared and her spirits lifted.  _ They came for me. _ “Robb sent you?” she whispered back as her heart began to pound.

“ _ Quickly _ ,” the maid hissed. “There is no time for questions. We must act  _ now _ !” Sansa hastened to follow Lillandei’s instructions. Lillandei produced a maid’s outfit from the bottom of the basket, dressed Sansa in it, covered her hair in a coif, and then helped her climb into the basket. She curled into a ball and Lillandei and the other woman covered her with dirty linens, adding her bedspread to the top. Then they rolled the basket out of the room, murmuring a “Good day” to the guards. They rolled Sansa down the corridor and into the servants’ stair. There was a platform there, that could be raised or lowered with a pulley, that they used to transport the cart between levels. They lowered the cart down, down, down, Sansa at the bottom of the basket was not quite sure what was going on. She couldn’t see anything, could only feel the cart descending, and her heart lurched every time the cart stilled only to drop again. Finally, the cart came to a stop at the bottom of the stairwell. Hands immediately grabbed the cart and wheeled it away--there was no way for Lillandei to have made it down the stairs that fast. Sansa’s heart was in her throat. She felt sure she would be discovered. What would happen to her? Suddenly it occurred to her that the whole thing might have been a trap. The psychological element to it seemed a bit too complex for Joffrey, but maybe he was looking for an excuse to throw her into the Black Cells….

The cart rolled along for a while. Sansa could feel the dampness in the air--they must be underground. Her nails dug into her palms as she struggled to control her breathing. Eventually it stopped, and a voice said, “Are you there, lady?”

Another voice quipped lowly, “It certainly  _ feels _ like someone’s in there.”

The linens parted to reveal a kind plump-cheeked face. “Do not worry, miss,” the face said. “I am Zala. There is a ship waiting for you in the harbor.” Zala helped Sansa out of the cart. They were in a dark, out-of-the-way corner of the cellars. There were half a dozen women dressed like smallfolk carrying baskets standing before her. They looked like Essosis. Zala, a dark-skinned Summer Islander, checked that her hair was completely covered and pulled a little jar out of her pocket. It was full of ash and soot, which she smeared on Sansa’s face so she looked like a scullery maid. By the time she was done creating this disguise Lillandei and her partner had arrived. They covered their maids’ uniforms with shawls and joined the women with the baskets. These women formed a ring around Sansa, concealing her in their midst. Lillandei stood by her side, gripping her hand with one hand and a basket in the other. They led her through the dark, damp corridors of the cellar, up a short flight of stairs, and out a servant’s entrance. As they approached the servants’ entrance they began chattering about the mistress of one of the bakers on the Street of Flour. No one looked at them twice, no one stopped them--they were too innocuous, and no one had realized Sansa was missing yet. The women kept up a stream of gossip as they wound throughout the city and towards the docks, which Sansa found oddly soothing. It gave her something to focus on other than her fear. They bypassed the Westerosi ships, heading to the section where the ships from Essos docked. A small crowd was waiting before one of these ships. A man with blue hair addressed Zala: “There you are, my love,” he said. “We’ve finished putting the luggage on board. Once you come onboard we are ready to lift anchor and be gone.”

They trundled up a plank, onto the ship, and into the cabin. The group blocking her from view parted before her, and as they did Sansa saw a table with a few people sitting at it. A dark-haired boy about Robb’s age with his back towards her turned. As his face came into profile Sansa felt the way she did when one of Joffrey’s Kingsguard punched her and all the air rushed out of her lungs. Before she could stop it the word she was thinking flew from her lips. “ _ Father _ ?”

*

Jon was surprised, to say the least, when Minna went into the city and came back with Sansa Stark. Not that he recognized her, of course--but Ser Barristan did.

They had arrived in King’s Landing two days before. Minna had gone out to rendezvous with her contacts and had come back in a black mood. She told Jon that the boy king was almost certainly mad, and that her contacts wanted out of King’s Landing--they did not feel safe working for a madman, having heard countless stories in the Red Keep of how Aerys had burned servants alive out of fear of nonexistent spies and assassins. They also felt that, with the war, an army taking King’s Landing was bound to happen, and they did not want to be there when it did. So all of her contacts who had not already left the city were going to leave with them on the ship, but they needed a few days to arrange things and be ready to leave.

This complicated their plans significantly. For one thing, they would need a lot more food. But it also blew their cover story of delivering antiques to a wealthy merchant. Their cover story gave no reason for them to stay any longer, and the longer they stayed the more questions they would face, and the more likely it was someone would see the discrepancies in their story. The workers at the dock would never know if no merchant received antiques from Essos, but the Spider would, and the story was one that might catch his interest. So another story was hastily concocted, and the ship was “hired” by a group of Essosi expatriates living in King’s Landing who wanted to return to Essos due to the war. This mummery was led by a Tyroshi musician, the blue-haired man Sansa had seen.

Later, when introductions had been made, when King’s Lading was leagues behind them, when he could speak to her privately, Jon would ask Minna, “So what you told me--was it all a lie? All a pretense to smuggle Sansa out of the city?”

“No,” Minna said. “It is true, anyone who  _ can _ get out of King’s Landing has been since your uncle was executed. They all wanted to leave. Maybe in other circumstances I would have given them some of the gold we brought so they could charter a ship to Essos or Oldtown. But the Stark girl--they say the mad boy was beating her, every time her brother won a battle, in front of the whole court, and other things too. They say he was killing whores who looked like her, and they were afraid of what he might do next. I couldn’t leave her there, not when I could get her out. But I knew that if someone put the pieces together and realized that it was some Essosi maids who got her out, suspicion would fall on every Essosi living in King’s Landing, and who knows what they would do? So I had to get them all out too, right now.”

“But why lie to me about it?” Jon asked. “Why not tell me?”

At this Minna looked down. “I am used to working on my own,” she said. “In Essos, you never tell anybody you are doing anything, you just do it. Everything must be done with secrecy, with as few people knowing as possible. Even the Breaker of Chains, she knew I was helping people out of the city but not who or how or when….I did not need you for the plan. You didn’t need to know.” Jon heard something unspoken, hanging between her words:  _ I didn’t trust that you wouldn’t stop me. _ It was the same reason he had never told Ser Arthur about his desire to run away with Daenerys. It stung, that she had thought he wouldn’t want to get this girl out of a situation very similar to the one Daenerys had been in. He had always tried to place himself between Daenerys and Viserys. How could she think he would condone such abuse when it was directed at somebody else?

But he had, hadn’t he? He’d intervened for Daenerys, yes, but not for any of the maids in the Magister’s household that Viserys had taken to his bed, nor the Lysene woman he’d brought with him to the Dothraki. What had he done for any of the slaves he’d known, throughout his life?  _ That was different _ , he thought.  _ I couldn’t help them. I had no power then. _ But Daenerys had had even less power than he, and she had still been helping Minna. If she hadn’t decided to use her dragons to free the slaves, would he have ever thought of it? Would he have ever used the power he suddenly had from his position at her side to help the enslaved? It was a sobering question. Jon had been taught to abhor slavery by the Kingsguard. But it seemed that maybe he’d learned their sense of its inevitability and immutability, of being powerlessness to do anything about it, too.

Jon did not voice these thoughts. But he tried to convey something of what he felt when he said, “You did a good thing, Minna. I’m glad you did it. But please tell me what you’re planning next time.”


End file.
